It will be a cold and frosty weekend as temperatures plummet with a risk of hail, sleet and possibly a little snow on high ground.

Disability campaigners are calling on the Government to reform how funding is provided to the sector.

Cycling legend Sean Kelly hopes to help break the Tour de Munster’s €2m fundraising target for Down Syndrome Ireland by the weekend.

Lismore Castle Gardens & Gallery was the stunning venue for the official launch, on Tuesday 23rd June, of the 15th Annual Tour de Munster cycle in aid of Down Syndrome Ireland (DSI).

A motorcade featuring more than 200 motorcyclists escorted the hearse carrying Down Syndrome Ireland fundraiser and avid biker Aidan Lynam’s coffin back to Dublin last night.

Dozens of children with Down Syndrome who had not previously been eligible for one-to-one special needs teaching in mainstream schools will get extra support from September.

Hundreds of families remained without power overnight after the fierce Atlantic storm, which crashed into the country blacking out homes, grounding flights, halting ferry crossings and delaying countless rail and road commuters.

A spokesman for Met Éireann has admitted they sometimes "overdo it" in order to err of the side of caution when it comes to issuing coded weather warnings.

A medical-cards campaigner has said he is not surprised by the findings of an expert panel, which found that it is not possible to allocate cards on the basis of medical conditions or illnesses.

Raising a child with Down syndrome is not without its highs and lows — with parents saying that support services differ wildly around the country, reports Arlene Harris.

Seán Kelly set the pace for 120 amateur cyclists out of Waterford yesterday on a tough four-day cycle through Munster’s six counties.

The Government is being urged to go one step further in its U-turn over medical cards, and refund people for the costs incurred while their cards were revoked.

Patients, disability groups, and organisations looking after terminally ill children all welcomed the return of medical cards to 15,300 people who lost them since the controversial 2011 cull began — but warned the Government they are closely watching their next steps.

A senior HSE director is insisting the executive did not ask for proof that a child still had Down Syndrome in the course of a medical card review.

There have been fresh appeals for the Government to re-instate discretionary medical cards to those who have had them removed.

Down Syndrome Ireland is calling on the government to restore all medical cards that have been removed from people over the past two years.

They definitely had the weather for it.

The head of Down Syndrome Ireland has said people living with the condition should automatically be entitled to medical cards.

A poignant television documentary is set to feature the triumphs of, and the challenges faced by, people with Down syndrome.

Half of people with Down syndrome have either had their medical cards scrapped or are in danger of losing them due to cutbacks.

Five-year-old Tom and his sister May, four, will start school next September but their educational needs are quite different.

Up to half of the country’s children with Down’s syndrome have lost their discretionary medical cards, and the group has been “disproportionately” hit by a recent clampdown, a leading advocacy group said.

Met Eireann has issued two weather warnings.

A lightning strike has damaged power lines in the south of the country leaving up to 7,000 homes with no electricity.

Ireland’s three largest disability groups have joined forces to urge Health Minister James Reilly to protect funding for the specialist sector.

More than 1,000 people a month are losing their discretionary medical cards, with a total drop of nearly 10,000 in the first eight months of the year.

Summer will return briefly this weekend with temperatures set to reach around the 20 degree mark.

Down Syndrome Ireland has said the majority of parents would warmly welcome any research which could eventually reverse the condition in newborns.

Dozens of children with Down’s syndrome will fall further behind after Ruairi Quinn, the education minister, deferred any decision that would give them automatic entitlement to additional teaching, a campaign group claims.

Education Minister Ruairi Quinn’s decision to re-examine de facto cuts to resource teachers for children with Down’s syndrome has received a cautious welcome from families affected by the condition.

Gardaí are hopeful CCTV footage will help them find the man who sexually assaulted a young women with special needs, whom he lured from a busy city street.

The general allocation model provides learning support teachers for an estimated 66,000 pupils, while around 21,400 primary and 9,800 second-level pupils receive resource teaching sanctioned by the National Council for Special Education based on professional assessments of a range of more complex needs.

The Department of Education took more than a year to properly follow up concerns about some children with Down’s syndrome being excluded from guaranteed resource teaching hours.

Ireland will remain in winter’s icy grip today with many roads due to be hazardous following overnight frost.

Winter is on its way back, forecasters have warned.

Winter is on its way back, forecasters have warned, as temperatures are expected to plunge from the unseasonably mild highs of 13C in recent weeks to as low as minus 3C in the coming days.